She flinched and stilled, her gaze wide and finally focusing on him.
“Not Adam.” The whispered words tore his heart to pieces and made him want to rage.
He was still tormenting her.
Cody brushed his fingertips softly along her cheek. “It’s me, honey. It’s Cody.”
Her focus finally settled on him.
The tears came again.
His face was so close to hers, their noses nearly brushed. His breath mingled with hers as he breathed her in. “It’s okay. You’re okay. No one is going to hurt you. You’re safe.” He pressed his forehead to hers, while she sat staring up at him like she couldn’t quite believe he was here and not Adam fucking Harris.
She touched her fingertips to his cheek. “You’re real.”
“That’s my girl. Yes. It’s me, Cody. You know me.” He brushed his fingers down her hair, patiently waiting for her to really see him. “There. Now you see me. Let’s fix your arm.” He stood back and gently ran his fingertips up the backside of her arm until he slid his hand under her elbow. He held it up while he put the medicine on the worst of the cuts that covered her forearm.
Seeing them, her, like this, it gutted him.
“I’m sorry, Brooke. I should have known you weren’t up for talking and moving around too much. We’ll take things slow from now on. I promise.”
She sat, blankly looking over his shoulder. Her whole body slumped in the chair. He had to hold her arm up for her. It was like she’d lost the strength to say anything or even move. She’d used up all her reserves and just needed to sit and not think or feel for a while.
He understood her desire to check out. But he’d have to watch her over the next few days and weeks to be sure she didn’t fall too far into despair and away from him and living her life.
He finished putting the medicine on her wounds. “There we go, sweetheart. Did the doctor say to keep these covered?”
She dropped her gaze to her arm, then quickly turned away from it.
One of the cuts on her hand looked pretty bad. Two others farther up on her arm weren’t in much better shape. The others were red but healing. Not so raw.
“Brooke, honey. Do we need to cover all of these again?”
“Hmm. Yes. No. What?”
“Look at me, honey.” When she did, he asked, “Do we need to cover this like before?”
“No. The doctor said to cover the bad ones.” She looked down at her arm again. “So, yeah, I guess that would be all of them, don’t you think?”
He cupped her cheek. “We’ll cover up the worst of them and leave the others alone. How long until the stitches come out?”
“I’m not sure. They gave me some papers with all the information. Mindy Sue put it in my bag. Some stay for a few more days. Others a week. Some more.”
“Okay. When we get home, I’ll make you an appointment with Dr. Nash. He can check you out and take out whatever stitches you don’t need when it’s time.”
She grunted a noncommittal response.
He went ahead and put bandages over the worst cuts and rewound her arm in gauze to cover everything.
He ran his hands up and down her thighs until she looked at him. “I need to take the brace and bandages off your broken arm. I’m not sure I can do it without causing you severe pain.”
“Just do it.” She used her left hand to pull the straps free on the brace and winced, then gritted her teeth.
Cody took over, going slowly and methodically until he could lay the brace open with her arm on the desktop.
Every little jarring motion hurt her. The blood drained from her face and sweat broke out on her brow.
Cody tried to work quickly without jarring or moving her arm. He used the scissors on the desk to cut the gauze away. He tossed all the old bandages into the trash and quickly covered the cuts in medicine, re-covering them with new gauze pads.
